


And do I smile, such cordial light

by gootarts



Series: the trap of ignorance, the snare of knowledge [1]
Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Other, saku spoilers, saku-verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26074225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gootarts/pseuds/gootarts
Summary: Battler, Kanon, and a lazy afternoon.
Relationships: Kanon/Ushiromiya Battler, Ushiromiya Battler/Yasuda Sayo
Series: the trap of ignorance, the snare of knowledge [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892926
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	And do I smile, such cordial light

**Author's Note:**

> hello. please consider the possibility of kanon manifesting partially due to euphoria instead of purely dysphoria in saku-verse. 
> 
> (3d render at the end was done by me)

Battler Ushiromiya was not a person known for back down on a challenge. That was just how he was— any person in his class would tell you a hundred, thousand times over that he made up for any lack of common sense with vigor to spare. 

However, that still had limits, and well, playing bathroom lookout for a friend? No matter what way you looked at it, even if he liked that friend a lot, wasn’t that sort of thing awkward? Embarrassing? Loitering near the urinals was weird in itself, but once you added in that he had to distract any other guy in the bathroom from his friend changing outfits a couple stalls over, and it turned downright creepy! If the exact details of it ever got out, no woman would ever look him in the face again, and for good reason. 

Well, no woman but Sayo. And even then, he wasn’t sure if that entirely counted—the silver-haired guy in front of him was proof of that. From tip to tail, Shannon and Kanon were opposite entities, like two separate planets orbiting a single star. 

“You’ve got a strand of hair.” Kanon barely flinched when Battler’s hand brushed a single brown lock back under his wig. He’d gotten good at glaring intently at the wall as Battler brushed back the hair framing his face, tucking in any evidence of the brunette back down underneath the mass of storm-grey hair. This too was part of the ritual that had become routine—if any person were to walk in on them like this, his dignity would be shredded. The soft warmth of Sayo’s face was like a strange melody that forced his heart to beat to the tune, starting at his chest and cascading down to his fingers as they trembled to the beat. Even after he stuffed those hands in his pockets and left for the halls, he could still feel them shaking. 

“I was wondering, do you want to get drinks?” Kanon’s voice spoke with the calm callousness of a man who didn’t understand the great ordeals he had just subjected Battler to.

“Agh, if you wanted to go there, why’d you put me on sentry duty?” He had a fondness for the neighborhood supermarkets not because of the nice old ladies who ran it, but the blessed, magnificent single-stall toilets; those moments of never-ending awkwardness, of hoping nobody walked in, simply did not exist within that heavenly realm. 

Kanon’s response, instead of nodding and (correctly!) saying that  _ yes, Battler, I apologize for putting such a burden on you when I was already hoping to go somewhere safer where I could change _ , was to cross his arms and narrow his eyes. 

“I was asking because you’re a poor student. I knew you would likely have to study and do homework, and so I wanted to know if you would have the spare time.” Kanon did not have a tongue coated in silver but one made of solid iron, able to slice through flesh and feelings alike, the kind that only could be countered with a barb of his own. 

“So you could run and get food while I suffered here? No way. I’m coming with you.” Besides, the place Kanon liked to visit had an old lady running the register, the kind that would constantly pinch your cheeks and ask you how you were doing—and more importantly, the kind that would throw in a free snack with your order. Two people would mean double the freebies; the math was so simple even he could do it.

“As I thought, you do have homework.”  Dammit, why was Kanon so perceptive? 

“Only because I’m hanging out with you instead of doing anything productive.” The only indication that Kanon had heard him was his sudden stop, which happened so quickly that he almost ran into him.

“I’m not forcing you to follow me.”  _ Tell me you want to be with me, right now, _ was what he meant, buried within those layers of his heart that Battler had learned to traverse.

“And go do homework alone in an empty classroom? No way! If we do it together, I get to make you help me out.” The two of them hated lonely afternoons like that, where the only concrete measures of time were the sunlight lazily poking through the windows and the pages in front of you, trapped there for both an instant and infinity. Having a second person was the doorway from an infinite liminal space to something fun, something you looked forward to day after day. As a bonus, it also meant you could bug somebody until they helped you with history. 

As Kanon opened the door to the shop, his glare practically beamed the words  _ I’m two years below you _ into Battler’s brain before picking out a bottle of yakult, still cold from the refrigerator. 

Battler slid a couple coins over alongside something he randomly plucked off the shelf; such a tactic, deserving of a Sengoku general, was to cement the fact that  _ he _ was the one paying for today instead of Kanon. “My treat! You’re not going to complain about helping out with my homework, though!”

Kanon may have thought he would gain an upper hand by drawing out a second and third bottle from the refrigerator in retaliation, but like a modern-day Oda Nobunaga, those bottles were already accounted for in the money he slid over! Even Kanon’s muttered “if you’re going to rope me into this, at least pay me fairly” was no less than the sweet taste of victory. 

“Will do! You’re far cheaper than a tutor, anyways.” A couple bottles was a mere couple hundred yen; a tutor, a couple thousand, though the dozen or so bottles that Kanon was probably considering making him pay for might have bridged that gap. Opening the door and heading back before Kanon could pull all them out was probably the best decision he had made all day; like any sharp commander would say, retreat was sometimes the most practical option when faced with such a powerful opposing force--or a strong drain on a wallet--such as Kanon. 

Sprawling out under one of the big trees on campus was today’s second best decision. Even if he was reminded of that cruel albatross named homework when he dug it out of his bag, at least he didn’t have to go upend half his bag searching for it like Kanon; that second set of clothes he carried around meant he was doomed to an existence of pulling things out and putting them back in to find  _ anything _ .

As he pulled out his own homework, he gave as loud and dramatic a sigh as he possibly could as he was confronted with his weakest points; even if his class rankings were more good than bad, that only meant he was stuck in the first circle of hell, not the seventh _.  _ After tossing out a couple half-baked answers, he snuck his gaze over to Kanon as he lounged in the shade, a book in his lap. Those long-dead masters of painting resplendent women on canvas could almost certainly learn their trade over again using him as an example; the corners of his mouth were tipped up just so as the breeze caressed his wig. It felt almost sinful to be disturbing him while he held some gently loved book in his lap. The name printed on the spine was Kurumizawa, the title the same as the one hiding somewhere in his bag. 

Even though they’d only decided the title last week, the arrangement itself was years older, starting with when they were kids and growing from there. He would bring a book, she would read it, and they would talk over warm tea and a beaten, weathered copy of Agatha Christie. That was how their relationship played out—not with massive, emotional confessions of love, but with equally passionate debate as to how to best stage a murder like a suicide. 

Even if he devoured books by the dozens, he’d never come across a single word that properly summed up that relationship. That giddy feeling in his chest when they spoke to Shannon, that smile that tugged at his lips when meeting with Kanon, you couldn’t just take a single slice of it—you had to look at the sum of its parts to truly understand. Such a relationship, fluid as it was strange, was fitting for Sayo. And as much as it was embarrassing to admit, it fit him as well. 

The difference between a friend you’d casually chat with and one you could bare your entire soul to was nothing less than a vast, bottomless abyss. Even now, the number of people who were trusted with that portion of Sayo that was called Kanon was in the single digits, with no plans on expanding. Even knowing Kanon’s name was an honor bestowed upon a select few, those she trusted beyond words or reason. In return, without meaning to, that same honor had infected his daydreams; somehow those idealistic, impossible worlds would always have room for Shannon or Kanon at his side. It didn’t matter how—they always managed to worm their way into those fantasies as a friend, partner, or something else, something _more,_ something that made him feel like he just stuck his entire body into an electric socket _._

Nobody else made him feel that way, nobody fit into those visions of the future like Sayo. His brain refused to even suggest anybody else, not after that had shared their souls, their universes with each other. Even now, his brain felt like it was physically itching, with the only way to scratch it to talk with Kanon about the book he was reading.

“Did they not assign you homework this week?” The dam tormenting his brain finally broke as he complained, loud and pouty. 

“I get mine done on the boat back with Jessica.” 

“What? Lucky! I bet you get her help on it, too!” She was his original partner in homework crime, but as their ages went up, her grades went down; soon it was at the point where he would have been better off just guessing the answers. Even so, he still sighed, long and loud and dramatic, at the extra help he was getting. “You live a charmed life.”

“What do you mean?” His voice was earnest.

“I mean…” Crap, thinking about it, if you were to compare the luck of the draw, it was Kanon that wouldn’t come close, not him. “Ah, forget it! Forget I said anything!”

He gave an apologetic smile, and Kanon just sighed, his brain already used to those incompetent, leap-before-you-think, comments. “Lost cause.”

“Hihi, that’s why I’m bugging you for help. I already did most of it, so it’s just a bit of English. And you’re really good at English, right? You’re always reading those elaborate, complicated books.” Even if no lie ever crossed his lips, it was, perhaps, a little exaggerated, and they both knew it; no matter who he was talking to, that internal glimmer of Sayo, that one that was oh-so prone to being buttered up, always managed to shine through. 

If Shannon was the sea, Kanon was the sky—connected and yet separate, unable to exist in the same place; if you only knew one of them, it was almost as if there was this whole other person hiding inside. Even for him, the guy who had been her friend for  _ years _ , it still came as a surprise. He had known those fragments of Sayo for years, but it didn’t make seeing them all come together in a single motion, joining together like a thousand puzzle pieces finally clicking into place, any less strange. That feeling still hadn’t completely worn itself out, even months later. Kanon acted in ways the Sayo in his memories never would, but more importantly, even beneath his chilly exterior, he seemed  _ happy _ . Like merely  _ being _ Kanon in public was like he had been given both heaven and earth on a single silver platter. 

Even if he hid his swelling ego when Battler praised him, you could still almost see his chest puff out. It was no doubt the fault of one of those fragments of Sayo poking through, the kind that cherished the kind of control you could never get as a servant, so much so that he was willing to extend an angelic-looking helping hand to a man like him. “Show me what you’re struggling with,” he said. Score! Even if he shot Battler A Look, he was still getting help to push one half-done English assignment through to completion. 

“Of course, if you need help with anything, you can ask me.” 

“I’ve told you, I get mine done on the boat.” Kanon’s handwritten notes in the margins were elegant, rearranging words and structures until he’d deciphered the sentence in mere seconds. 

“Man, I’m really going to miss this when I go off to high school.” The forms had already been signed, and the uniform was already in his closet; the only thing to do was wait for summer to come and go. Even if he knew a couple of the people who he’d be going with, they weren’t Kanon—he was stuck here for another two years, and right now, was giving him a strange look that he couldn’t quite place.

“I will too. I like this.” His voice was quiet, but firm. For him, going off to high school meant going off to a new place, but for Sayo, it meant nobody would talk with Kanon like they were doing now. 

“Kanon really means that much to you?” Anybody who had seen how happy Sayo was when she first put on his clothes would know the question was rhetorical.

Kanon nodded as he clenched a fist to his chest. “I don’t want to lose this moment. If it were to continue forever…I wouldn’t be unhappy.”

All his memories of these casual afternoons spent together, to the blue skies at his back, to the thought of sharing that with Sayo, came bubbling to the surface of his mind. “Yeah. Me too.” 

These afternoons, his favorite part of the day, came too slowly and ended far too quickly. The thought of having to spend two entire years before the next one came around, when a single school day already felt like torture, felt physically painful. Even if they’d meet at Rokkenjima, those moments were so small and so far in between when the city and all its gleaming trains and buses were already right  _ there _ . 

“I mean, I won’t get wiped off the planet once I enter high school, ihihi. What do you say we try and keep doing this once I enter high school?” Even if his friends poked fun at him for spending time with a middle schooler, these moments with Kanon were worth it a thousand times over.

“Is that a promise?” Kanon’s eyes were clear, determined and lonely, reflecting the kid he fell in love with what felt like a lifetime ago. 

“I…yeah. Promise.” He felt like Kanon would laugh when he held out a pinky, but he instead wrapped his finger around Battler’s without an ounce of hesitation. And then it was done—a promise for the future, that no matter what, Battler wouldn’t abandon him.

(more than a decade later, even with everything that happened, it was a promise he was still glad he kept)


End file.
